The theme of this article, “the political participation and the voting age of children and the youth” is motivated by the following questions. Why can't children and the youth in Korea autonomously make a decision on issues related to their own in...
The theme of this article, “the political participation and the voting age of children and the youth” is motivated by the following questions. Why can't children and the youth in Korea autonomously make a decision on issues related to their own interests? According to the principles of democracy, political participation is very important for the members of the community to exercise their own rights and to look after their own interests. However, why are their political participation extensively limited due to the voting age which is particularly too high to meet the present global trend? What is the rationale behind the current high the voting age which limits their political involvement? Is the rationale possible to secure its legitimacy constitutionally?
Even though children and the youth correspond to approximately 21 percent of the people, they have been recognized as being excluded from the area of political participation. It is the strongly supporting fact that there is no way for them to participate in the political decision-making process to represent their interests in the institutional aspects. This is because they are not equally considered as Korean citizens and main agents of their rights in our society.
Heretofore, their political participation has been limited by the high the voting age embodied in article 15, paragraph 1 of act on the election of public officials. The problem of limiting the political participation of children and youth by the voting age is limitation of sovereignty of children and youth of being citizen and becoming citizen as democratic citizenship. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to discuss the problematic limitation of their political participation due to the current the voting age and the possible improvements to it. it suggests that there is a need for lowing the voting age to ensure their political participation in Korea. Since the legal the voting age needs to be lowered gradually from a long-term perspective, the article 15, paragraph 1 of act on the election of public officials is in urgent need of its amendment to legalize the voting age of 18. Furthermore, the voting age of 16 is being actively discussed in the world. Now it also is necessary to make a continuous effort in order to form a social consensus on the introduction of the voting age 16 in Korea.